The Runner (partially lost go90 reality show; 2016)

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TheRunnerPoster.jpg

The show's promotional poster.

Status: Partially Lost

The Runner was a reality show on the streaming service go90 that premiered on July 1st, 2016, hosted by Matthew Patrick (Game Theory) and Kaj Larsen (Vice News). The show was streamed live 3 times a day for 20-30 minutes per episode on the go90 website and app at 12pm, 3pm, and 10pm EST[1]. The show only aired for one season and concluded at the end of July 2016.

The show consisted of 5 "Chase Teams" each with two people chasing down a designated anonymous "Runner" across the United States over the month of July. A timer begins when the runner is released and the longer the timer runs, the more money the chase team wins when they catch the runner. When a runner is caught, a new runner is selected from a pool and the timer is restarted. The show revolved heavily around utilizing social media and OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) to solve clues, and viewers of the show were incentivized with cash prizes to assist their favorite chase teams in solving clues[2].

History

MatPat talks to the media about the game in Control90, the show's headquarters.

The Runner was first pitched to ABC by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in November of 2000[3] and was put on indefinite hold after the 9/11 terror attacks[4]. The show was then in development at Yahoo in 2006 but was never greenlit, and once again was shelved. Finally, in March of 2016, the show was announced to release on Verizon's free mobile-oriented streaming platform, go90[5].

Production

Photo showing the full cast and crew celebrating the completion of Season 1.

The show was released on July 1st, 2016 to mixed reviews. While people were entertained there were issues that arose during production that had to be dealt with sometimes live on camera. Audio problems with the live studio segments were common, and due to time and space constraints, much of the on-location recordings were done with crew members' iPhones to speed up the editing process[6].

Control room used for live production of the show.

The show originally intended to have 1 primary runner with a new one introduced if they were caught early, and 5 chase teams following them. However, after the first two runners were caught on Days 7 and 16 respectively, they were quickly paired up and added as another chase team. Additionally, the identity of the runners is supposed to be anonymous in order to force chase teams to rely more on technology and clues to capture them, and any videos of the runners have their faces obscured or censored. However, the quick editing turnaround time led to a mistake in the first episode of Day 11, where the second runner's face was left unblurred for 1 frame of video.

Matpat at the unused finish line.

A final notable problem that occured was when the last runner was captured by mistake live on the first episode of the final day, which led to the entire 2-part planned finale and finish line having to be scrapped and improvised live. As of currently, these final two episodes have not been recovered.

A second season was confirmed but never happened before go90 ceased operations[7].

Availability

Each episode was available to watch on-demand in the go90 app or on the website as soon as each daily stream completed. However, once go90 shut down operations in 2018, the show was not sold or transferred to any other streaming services like others on the platform. 21 complete archived streams of episodes remain on the show's official Facebook page[8], and in December of 2020, the YouTube channel The Runner Archive uploaded all 30 episodes[9], with only the final two episodes of the final day missing.

Direct emails to contacts at Verizon have led to reports of a search for archived copies of the missing episodes, but responses indicate that the CDN service for go90 was not owned by Verizon and once the contract expired after go90 ceased operations, files in the CDN were removed and overwritten.

Episode List

Below are all of the episodes produced and their availability status.

# Air Date Status
1 July 1, 2016 Found
2 July 1, 2016 Found
3 July 1, 2016 Found
4 July 2, 2016 Found
5 July 2, 2016 Found
6 July 2, 2016 Found
7 July 3, 2016 Found
8 July 3, 2016 Found
9 July 3, 2016 Found
10 July 4, 2016 Found
11 July 4, 2016 Found
12 July 4, 2016 Found
13 July 5, 2016 Found
14 July 5, 2016 Found
15 July 5, 2016 Found
16 July 6, 2016 Found
17 July 6, 2016 Found
18 July 6, 2016 Found
19 July 7, 2016 Found
20 July 7, 2016 Found
21 July 7, 2016 Found
22 July 8, 2016 Found
23 July 8, 2016 Found
24 July 8, 2016 Found
25 July 9, 2016 Found
26 July 9, 2016 Found
27 July 9, 2016 Found
28 July 10, 2016 Found
29 July 10, 2016 Found
30 July 10, 2016 Found
31 July 11, 2016 Found
32 July 11, 2016 Found
33 July 11, 2016 Found
34 July 12, 2016 Found
35 July 12, 2016 Found
36 July 12, 2016 Found
37 July 13, 2016 Found
38 July 13, 2016 Found
39 July 13, 2016 Found
40 July 14, 2016 Found
41 July 14, 2016 Found
42 July 14, 2016 Found
43 July 15, 2016 Found
44 July 15, 2016 Found
45 July 15, 2016 Found
46 July 16, 2016 Found
47 July 16, 2016 Found
48 July 16, 2016 Found
49 July 17, 2016 Found
50 July 17, 2016 Found
51 July 17, 2016 Found
52 July 18, 2016 Found
53 July 18, 2016 Found
54 July 18, 2016 Found
55 July 19, 2016 Found
56 July 19, 2016 Found
57 July 19, 2016 Found
58 July 20, 2016 Found
59 July 20, 2016 Found
60 July 20, 2016 Found
61 July 21, 2016 Found
62 July 21, 2016 Found
63 July 21, 2016 Found
64 July 22, 2016 Found
65 July 22, 2016 Found
66 July 22, 2016 Found
67 July 23, 2016 Found
68 July 23, 2016 Found
69 July 23, 2016 Found
70 July 24, 2016 Found
71 July 24, 2016 Found
72 July 24, 2016 Found
73 July 25, 2016 Found
74 July 25, 2016 Found
75 July 25, 2016 Found
76 July 26, 2016 Found
77 July 26, 2016 Found
78 July 26, 2016 Found
79 July 27, 2016 Found
80 July 27, 2016 Found
81 July 27, 2016 Found
82 July 28, 2016 Found
83 July 28, 2016 Found
84 July 28, 2016 Found
85 July 29, 2016 Found
86 July 29, 2016 Found
87 July 29, 2016 Found
88 July 30, 2016 Found
89 July 30, 2016 Lost
90 July 30, 2016 Lost

Gallery

Promo announcing the show (no actual footage of the show is used).

Recording of the press event hosted by go90 to announce the show.

See Also

References